"Mat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... good deal to do with our ultimate yielding. However, the reports of those who visited Bones were wonderful and marvelous. He was residing there in state, lying on rugs in the drawing-room, coiled up under the judicial desk in the judge's study, sleeping regularly on the mat outside Miss Pinkey's bedroom door, or lazily snapping at flies on ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... the soft pine-needle mat, face down, and she groveled and burrowed there, in an agony that could not bear the sense of light. All she had suffered was as nothing to this. To have awakened to a splendid and uplifting love for a man whom she had imagined she hated, who had fought for her name and had ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... sweetly over the hill-sides of the verdant isle, as our young friend Will Corrie. Nothing could delight the heart of the child so much as to witness the mad gambols, not to mention the mischievous deeds, of that ragged little piece of an old door-mat, which, in virtue of its being possessed of animal life, was named Toozle. And when Alice wished to talk quietly,—to pour out her heart, and sometimes her tears,—the bosom she sought on which to lay her head, next to her father's, was that of ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... the plates around the table, at equal intervals, and the knives and forks at regular distances, each in the same particular manner, with a cup-mat, or cup-plate, to each, and a napkin at the ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... circular, thick mat of straw, from two to four feet in diameter, covered with canvas, painted in a series of circles. The inner circle is a gold color, then comes red, white, black, and the outer circle white. The score for a gold hit is nine; the red 7, the inner white ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... words to express their joy and surprise at the discovery of a large jar of parched rice, a tomahawk, an Indian blanket almost as good as new, a large mat rolled up, with a bass-bark rope several yards in length wound round it, and, what was more precious than all, an iron three-legged pot in which was a quantity of Indian corn. These articles had evidently constituted the stores of some Indian hunter or trapper: possibly ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... raisins which she had earned by laboring for others—a self-denial almost equal to her previous giving up of her only bed for the use of a daughter in the Seminary, which she brought, saying, "I can sleep on the hasseer [rush mat], if you will only receive ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... Simmons's jaw was dropping lower and lower. At the end of it he poked his fingers up through his hair, looked down at the mat, then up at the fanlight, then out into the street, then hard at his visitor. But ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... him a present of food, he was particular to set his mat in proper order, and would be the first one to taste it. If the prince's present was one of raw meat, he must needs have it cooked, and make an oblation of it. If the gift were a live animal, he would be sure to keep ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... a roaring sound and begins to shake all over. By now all the taps are red-hot, and, by the time you've burnt yourself to hell, you're wondering whether, if you start at once, you'll have time to leave the house before the thing bursts. Finally, you knock the gas off with the cork mat.... ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... intercourse and communication with them was cut off. It was ordered that no one should admit them to their houses. They were commanded not to build huts, even for the infant children, to defend them from the inclemencies of the weather. Guards were set over them so that no one should grant them even a mat for their shelter, the persecutors hoping by this means to bend them to their will. Although the confessors of Christ undergo great suffering, they do so with joy and invincible constancy. Others who were not banished were deprived ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... unknown. In one little section of the Gila and Rio Grande, the people spun and wove a native cotton, manufactured a rude pottery, and lived in houses or castle-towns of unburnt bricks. Elsewhere the canoe or cabin of bark or hides, and the arabesque mat, denoted the highest ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... to examine a fine copy of Landseer's "Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner," and, while he stood before it, a large greyhound started up from the mat at the front door, and bounded towards him. Simultaneously Mrs. Gerome appeared at the ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... he looked a curious change came over him. She was the same Nan Bryerson, bareheaded, barelegged, with the same tousled mat of dark hair, and the same childish indifference to a whole frock. And yet she was not the same. The subtle difference, whatever it was, made him get up and offer to shake hands with her,—and he thought it was the newly-made vows constraining ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... the chief difficulty. On week days she wore none, but of course St. Mark's demanded a headgear of some kind, and at last Mrs. Jenkins triumphantly produced one of Tam o' Shanter shape manufactured from a lamp mat and adorned with some roses bestowed by the leading lady. The belligerent locks of the little scrub-girl refused to respond to advances from curling iron or papers, but one of the neighbors whose hair was a second cousin in hue to Amarilly's amber tresses, ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... sure o' that?" he demanded. "Tha wert so ready wi' thy gab about th' Davys this mornin' I thowt happen tha'd loike to say sum-mat more if a mon ud gi' yo' a chance. But happen agen yo're one o' th' soart as sticks to gab an' goes ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in one window, two brass hoppered mills in the other, and our boiler was under the sidewalk. We had a mahogany-top counter, oil paintings on the wall, and bin fronts of Chinamen, etc., done by the celebrated artist, Mat Hastings (now dead); so you ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... families live have no partitions, to each couple being assigned a space about eight feet square, which is chalk-marked on the floor. The only article of furniture in each of these "apartments" is a bed, which is really a broad, low platform covered with a grass-mat, for in a land where the mercury not infrequently climbs to 120 in the shade, there is no need for bedding. Here they eat and sleep and make their toilets, the women preparing the meals for their men and for themselves in ovens out-of-doors. At night the beds may be separated by drawing the flimsiest ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... that don't know about it already," declared Abner with perfect truthfulness. "I'll have to be awful di-plo-mat-ic," he went on, "or Pegleg will be sure to suspect something. And I pity you an' M'lissy if he got hold of the real reason why you wanted it. Pegleg can scatter news faster than a pea ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... expected; and Mr. Learning dryly observed, "I see that you have troubled Mr. Arithmetic, the ironmonger, as little as Mr. History, the carpet manufacturer; and however pretty your fancy articles may be, I must just venture to remark that a poker is more useful than porcelain, a mat than a gilded French mirror, and that, though a tambourine may be charming, it can't supply the place ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... Male activities Female activities Male industries in detail Boat building Mining Plaiting and other activities Female industries in detail Weaving and its accessory processes Pottery Tailoring and mat making ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... her; it was this: she found that all that had made life interesting to her was suddenly gone. She herself had not known, that, for the month past, since James came from sea, she had been living in an enchanted land,—that Newport harbor, and every rock and stone, and every mat of yellow seaweed on the shore, that the two-mile road between the cottage and the white house of Zebedee Marvyn, every mullein-stalk, every juniper-tree, had all had a light and a charm which were suddenly gone. There had not been an hour ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... with cozy toes and hands We were dreaming, just like you; Till we thought of palmy lands Coloured like a cockatoo; All in drowsy nursery nooks Near the clutching fire we sat, Searching quaint old story-books Piled upon the furry mat. ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... eyes. It took her several minutes to realise that it was all a dream. She was in her own little room in the brown house, and the sun was peeping through the shutters. The holes in the rag carpet, the cheap, cracked mirror, the braided mat in front of her washstand, and the broken pitcher ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... on the mat, Some doubtfle o' the sekle, His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, But hern went ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... let it ride at that and gone along about my own affairs, which ain't so pressin' just then. Yes, I might. But I don't. Maybe it was hornin' in where there was no welcome sign on the mat, and then again perhaps it was only a natural folksy feelin' for an old friend I hadn't seen for a long time. Anyway, I'm prompted sudden to take Rupert by the arm and insist that he must come and have ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... her further in. It was a long room. The entrance formed a sort of parlour or place to sit. The rest of the apartment was divided longitudinally into little cubicula, rooms of the space of the one dirty mat with which each was furnished. A shelf contained its cynically filthy ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... St. Alban, the embarkation of St. Boniface and his companions for Germany, and the natives of Nukapu, Melanesia, placing the body of Bishop Patteson in a canoe. The Martyred Bishop is shown wrapped in a native mat, a relic still preserved in ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw
... up completely. I never saw such a cowardly cur; he wouldn't show any fight, although he was pretty near as big as a costermonger's donkey; and there my dog Tiger nearly eat half of him, and dragged the other half about the gutter, till he looked more like an old door-mat than a dog; and I thought he must have killed him ... and here he comes out as fresh as paint to-day, and kills old Tiger clean off as though he'd been ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... and the ministers of the seven churches who are upheld by the Lord himself are representative, in one important sense at least, of the entire Christian ministry; for Christ has promised to be with them alway "even unto the end of the world." Mat. 28:20. ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... which gently rustled the thick foliage, and enlivened by the songs of the birds that perched upon the boughs. The ivy and the moss crept in thick clusters over the old trees, and the soft green turf overspread the ground like a silken mat. They emerged upon an open park, with an ancient hall, displaying the quaint and picturesque architecture of Elizabeth's time. Long vistas of stately oaks and elm trees appeared on every side; large herds of deer were cropping the fresh grass; and occasionally ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... was warm and smelt unaired. Two or three letters lay on the mat inside the door, a huge blue-bottle boomed at a window trying to ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... of wheat or other straws cut about a foot long; a mat or blanket; a pointed staff for ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... bullocks if you will fetch her back and make her live with me!" The Sultan smiled, and observed only, "Hem, your wife won't live with you! Well, what can I do?" Another man came forward and cried, "O Sultan! I am a thief, but you must pardon me. I stole this mat because I was a poor man" (holding up the mat). "I restore the mat." His highness observed, "Leave it; I will see what can be done." A collection of stolen articles was restored also by another person. Then came a man more bold, and brought a present from a neighbouring village, consisting ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... of her house stood open, and on the porch one of the coloured maids was beating the dust out of the straw mat. "As if dust makes any difference when one is dead," Virginia thought wearily; and an unutterable loathing passed over her for all the little acts by which one rendered tribute to the tyranny of appearances. Then, as she entered the house, she felt that the sight of the ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... stick into at the best of times. I remember laughing and looking across the room at him. Well, I saw an expression in his eyes that settled it. He looked as if he could see me—just like I know I am—in the mornings when I first wake up—all frowsy and fuddled, with this little bit of a mat I've got, sticking out in tails, about as long as your hand, on the pillow. It takes a bit of courage for a man to even go and live with a woman after he's seen her like that. I assure you it didn't take me much courage to tell him ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... to the kitchen, there to be regaled in a baronial fashion, which it was well for his morals and digestion was not a daily festival. Jeffreys, having seen him comfortably curled up on a mat, returned to the library. His host was pacing up and down the floor, evidently a little nervous, and Jeffreys instinctively felt that the ordeal was upon him. Mr Rimbolt, however, began ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... potter's wares, which are in great demand; in Basanza, excellent swords; in Basundi, especially beautiful ornamented copper rings; on the Congo, clever wood and tablet carvings; in Loango, ornamented clothes and intricately designed mats; in Mayumbe, clothing of finely woven mat-work; in Kakongo, embroidered hats and also burnt clay pitchers; and among the Bayakas and ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... hills and valleys of Onondaga or tasting the sweet waters of familiar springs. For here was evil water, of which no man might drink to quench his thirst; there were no firebrands to throw into the face of the North Wind; there was no trail, to follow or to retrace. O for his mat by the fire in the Long House, with the young braves and old warriors sprawling around, recounting ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... the inner mat the mourner perceived a white square on the floor. He picked it up and carefully examined it, and then handed it ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... willingly, for I was very hungry, and the viands looked very tempting. When I had eaten a good meal, I jumped up and shook the old chief and his son very heartily by the hand; and then sitting down on a mat, I threw myself back, and began singing away at the top of my voice, as if I had been perfectly contented with my lot. When, however, I got up to leave the house, signs were made to me that I was to stay where I was. This, I concluded, ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... entered as aforesaid shall take out a coarse shirt and a pair of trousers, or petticoat, for each negro intended to be taken aboard; as also a mat, or coarse mattress, or hammock, for the use of the said negroes. The proportions of provision, fuel, and clothing to be regulated by the table ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... that I hesitate whether to call it a gift or a hereditary curse. You may rob this lady's coco-patch, steal her canoes, burn down her house, and slay her family scatheless; but one thing you must not do: you must not lay a hand upon her sleeping-mat, or your belly will swell, and you can only be cured by the lady or her husband. Here is the report of an eye-witness, Tasmanian born, educated, a man who has made money—certainly no fool. In 1886 ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... let himself in at the front door, and stood for some time wiping his boots on the mat The little house was ominously still, and a faint feeling, only partially due to the lapse of time since breakfast, manifested itself behind his waistcoat. He coughed—a matter-of-fact cough—and, with an attempt to hum a ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... lived like a gipsy; but gipsies he scorned. He was about as thriving as travelling basket and mat makers; but he had nothing to do with them. He was more decently born and brought up than the cattle-drovers who passed and repassed him in his wanderings; but they merely nodded to him. His stock was more valuable than ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... walk at the foot of the housesteps words, neatly traced in little white shells, reminded him not to "forget the scraper". On the doorstep he was informed, in letters of lead, that he was "Welcome!" On the mat in the passage bristly black words burst on his attention, commanding him to "wipe his shoes." Even the hat-stand in the hall was not allowed to speak for itself; it had "Hats and Cloaks" inscribed on it, and it issued its directions ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... on the point of giving his orders to re-embark, when a man threw a stone at him; which he returned with a discharge of small shot (with which one barrel of his double piece was loaded). The man, having a thick mat before him, received little or no hurt: he brandished his spear, and threatened to dart it at Captain Cook, who being still unwilling to take away his life, instead of firing with ball, knocked him down with his musket. He expostulated ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... tried for a murder years ago, for I know it was loaded since I was a child, but that the lock has for the same space of time not been on speaking terms with the barrel. While, then, thus confirmed in our suspicions of mischief by Mat's warlike aspect, we both rose from the table, the door opened, and a young girl rushed in, and fell—actually threw herself into papa's arms. It was Nina herself, who had come all the way from Rome alone, that ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... thrust from a side window and the refuse in a smoking iron spider was dumped upon the snow. Simultaneously it was shown that more than one person tenanted the building: a man, bareheaded, but with a shaggy mat of roached hair that served in lieu of a hat, issued from the door. The wanton luxuriance of the hair would have stirred envy in any baldheaded man; but Tasper Britt exhibited a passion that was more ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... roof, composed of the bamboo cane, and thatched with grass, forms alike the palace of the king, and the hovel of the slave. Their household furniture is equally simple. A hurdle of canes placed upon upright stakes, about two feet from the ground, upon which is spread a mat or bullock's hide, answers the purpose of a bed; a water jar, some earthen pots for dressing their food, a few wooden bowls and calabashes, and one or two low stools, ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... him say, "and I hope we shall be the best of neighbours;" and his face was flushed, and he looked very handsome; while, when they shook hands on the door-mat, I could see the bright-eyed thing smiling in his face and looking pleased; and that shaking of the hands took a deal longer than it ought, while she gave him a look that made me think if I'd had a daughter like that, she'd have ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... with the exception of one fragment of a beetle (Buprestis); in a word, no organic remains, except plants, have as yet been found. These plants occur in fourteen of the beds— namely, in two of the clays, and the rest in the lignites. One of the beds is a perfect mat of the debris of a coniferous tree, called by Heer Sequoia Couttsiae, intermixed with leaves of ferns. The same Sequoia (before mentioned as a Hempstead fossil) is spread through all parts of the formation, its cones, and seeds, and branches of every age being preserved. It is ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... added a scraper and an old lady ran up with a door-mat. Carpenters arrived with a water-butt, and the ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... old snowdrifts were hiding their black faces, and gradually their hard hearts broke and ran away in creeping streams, and the earth returned to the earth that gave it; a mist too, arose from the earth, and softened its bare outlines, and soon the first anemone pushed its furry nose through the mat of gray grass, and scored another victory on the robin; the white poplar blushed green at its roots; the willows at the edge of the river reddened higher and higher, as the sap mounted; headings of mouse-ears soon began to ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... of circulation, Or of thoughts in the process of fabrication, By a spinning-jennyish operation, It's hard to say what buzzing it is. However, except that ghost of a sound, She sat in a silence most profound - The cat was purring about the mat, But her mistress heard no more of that Than if it had been a boatswain's cat; And as for the clock the moments nicking, The dame only gave it credit for ticking. The bark of her dog she did not catch; Nor yet the click of the lifted latch; Nor yet ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... and cold, And passed it to me: And I raised my hat And drank to her with a reverence that My conscience knew was justly due The old black face, and the old eyes, too— The old black head, with its mossy mat Of hair, set under its cap and frills White as the snows on Alpine hills; Drank to the old black smile, but yet Bright as the sun on the violet,— Drank to the gnarled and knuckled old Black hands whose palms had ached and bled And pitilessly been worn pale And white almost as the palms ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... Peninsula. They all rise slightly at the stern and at the bows; they all are decked in with wide laths of bamboo; they all carry a mast which may be lowered or raised at will, and which seems to be altogether too tall and heavy for safety; they all fly under a vast spread of yellow palm-mat sail, the sight of which, as it fills above you, and you lie clutching the bulwark on the canting boat, while half the crew are hanging by ropes over the windward side, fairly takes your breath away; and all are so rigged that if taken aback the mast must part or the boat be inevitably capsized. ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... great place—most bazaar storytellers in India make their villain hail from there; but when the agony and intrigue are piled highest and the tale halts till the very last breathless sprinkle of cowries has ceased to fall on his mat, why then, with wagging head and hooked forefinger, the ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... to a number of small cabins built on the banks of the river, and into one of these they entered, the beaver bidding the Osage first wipe his feet upon the mat which lay beside the door. The Osage found the floor of the cabin strewed with the newly-gathered branches of the box and fir. The roof and walls were white as the robe which our white brother folds around his breast, and a cool, refreshing air entered the building ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... sallied out upon the street and found a hardware store. There, after some exploration, she purchased an asbestos table-mat. With this she returned to her ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... lying down, lay straight; when sitting down, sat upright; and when standing, stood erect. She would not taste strange flavors, nor have anything to do with spiritualism; if her food were not cut straight she would not eat it, and if her mat were not set straight, she would not sit upon it. She would not look at any objectionable sight, nor listen to any objectionable sound, nor utter any rude word, nor handle any impure thing. At night she studied some canonical work, by day ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... banishment from home, that his father's religious ferocity is fuelled and fanned by these good people. One day, before Khalid was banished, Shakib tells us, one of them, Father Farouche by name, comes to pay a visit of courtesy, and finds Khalid sitting cross-legged on a mat writing a letter. ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... vers superbes; c'est un reflet de gloire que vous m'envoyez." Mr Matthew Arnold's compliment was very like Mr Arnold's humour: "Your father has been our most popular poet for over forty years, and I am of opinion that he fully deserves his reputation": such was "Mat's sublime waggery." Tennyson heaped coals of fire on the other poet, bidding him, as he liked to be bidden, to write more poetry, not "prose things." Tennyson lived much in the society of Browning and George Eliot, and made ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... made by putting layers of various kinds and colors of ice creams into a brick mold. Pack and freeze. At serving time, cut into slices crosswise of the brick, and serve each slice on a paper mat. ...
— Ice Creams, Water Ices, Frozen Puddings Together with - Refreshments for all Social Affairs • Mrs. S. T. Rorer
... Brittles opened the door to its full width, and confronted a portly man in a great-coat; who walked in, without saying anything more, and wiped his shoes on the mat, as coolly as if ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... with the golden sun and superimposed black cogwheel of the Empire, and red kilts and black ankle boots and weapons belts, and the captain had a narrow gold-laced cape over his shoulders, but for the rest, their bodies were covered with a stiff mat of black hair, and their faces were slightly like terriers'. (For all his humanity, Captain-General Dorflay's face was more like a bulldog's.) They were hillmen from the southern hemisphere of Thor, and as a people they ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper
... should be covered with a good quality of linoleum. A perforated rubber mat may be placed at the sink, although this is not necessary. In fact, it is a better plan for the woman in the kitchen, as indeed elsewhere, to get rubber heels for her shoes. The Arabs have a proverb that to ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... By that illumination Father Anthony saw two men stripped naked, save for a loincloth, and circling each other slowly in the center of a ring which was fenced in with ropes and floored with a padded mat. ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... smell a crocodile farther off and more differentiatingly than could any man, than could even a salt-water black or a bushman smell one. He could tell when a crocodile, hauled up from the lagoon, lay without sound or movement, and perhaps asleep, a hundred feet away on the floor mat of jungle. ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... very artificial, with a dish of oranges plucked from the tree at our door on one side, and a dish of almonds on the other, a pipkin standing betwixt 'em with a handsome posey of roses in it. She had spread a mat on the floor, and folded up our fine blankets to serve for cushions; and all that did not belong to her she had bundled out of sight into that hollowed side I have mentioned as ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... if a window shade had been drawn too low or a pane of glass had not sparkled, or there had been loose paper on the ground or moulted feathers on the bricks, she would have discovered this with the victorious satisfaction of finding fault. But orderliness prevailed. No; the mat at the front door had been displaced by Rowan's foot as he had hurried from the house. (The impulse was irresistible: she adjusted it with her toe and planted herself on it with ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... the English market requires. By the time we repassed it on our way home, many a negro was spending his day's savings, and becoming as happy as wine could make him; and many a traveller was regaling himself with bread, garlic, and salt, and preparing to spread his mat, and lie down in the open air for the night. Night within the tropics is always a gayer and more peopled time than with us; the heat of the day detains many within doors all day, and evening and night become the favourite hours for walking. As we returned through Boa Vista ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... door stood open, and the light from the hall chandelier shone upon something that glittered on the door-mat. The servant was not in sight; the merriment in the parlors was increasing; the way was open to any child who might see and covet the gold locket which lay ready to be picked up either by honest or dishonest hands. ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... have a ship on purpose for you, and you shall take the kitchen fender, the coal-scuttle, the big door-mat, ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... sometimes only once in two days, often even in four; his food was bread with salt, his drink nothing but water. To speak of flesh and wine there is no need, for such a thing is not found among other earnest men. When he slept he was content with a rush-mat: but mostly he lay on the bare ground. He would not anoint himself with oil, saying that it was more fit for young men to be earnest in training, than to seek things which softened the body; and that they must accustom themselves to labour, according ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... bed, berth, pallet, tester, crib, cot, hammock, shakedown, trucklebed[obs3], cradle, litter, stretcher, bedstead; four poster, French bed, bunk, kip, palang[obs3]; bedding, bichhona, mattress, paillasse[obs3]; pillow, bolster; mat, rug, cushion. footstool, hassock; tabouret[obs3]; tripod, monopod. Atlas, Persides, Atlantes[obs3], Caryatides, Hercules. V. be supported &c.; lie on, sit on, recline on, lean on, loll on, rest on, stand on, step on, repose on, abut on, bear on, be based on &c.; have ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... "but unfortunately that's what the rotten doctors say." He rose to his feet and extended his uninjured hand, "S'long, Number One! I've got to get back to my old nursing home or I'll find myself on the mat.... S'long, Pills. Give 'em all my love, and tell 'em I'm coming back all right when the plumbers have finished with me." He stopped at the doorway and turned, facing ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... Mat macers, fellows and old women who go round in a morning when the servants are cleaning the doorways and steal the ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... came a loud knock at the outer door, then a ring, followed by a cheerful voice calling through the window—"I say, Hagar, are you there? Shall I come in or wait on the mat till the slavey arrives. * * * Oh, here she is—Salaam! Talofa! Aloha!—which is heathen for How do you do, God ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... I said, angrily. But I addressed an empty vestibule. There was absolutely no one there, and then I sat down on the mat and laughed. I never was so glad to see no one in my life. But my ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... be rational, and planned that I should tap at her bedroom door and lay the letter on the mat outside and wait on the upper landing for what might happen, and never was gunpowder cannon-balls or shells or rockets more dreaded than that dreadful letter was by me as I took it to the ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... house) mastro. Master (teacher) instruisto. Master (of profession) majstro. Mr. sinjoro. Masterpiece cxefverko. Mastic mastiko. Masticate macxi. Mastication macxado. Mastiff korthundo. Mat mato. Match alumeto, egaligi. Match-box alumetujo. Match kompari, egaligi. Matchless nekomparebla. Matchmaker alumetisto. Match (marriage) svatisto. Mate sxipoficiro. Mate kunulo. Material (cloth) sxtofo. Material materialo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... after my arrival at Bombay, I got up with the first blush of the dawn, and hastily drawing on my clothes, proceeded along greedily in search of adventures. I had not gone far, before I saw a native sleeping on a mat spread in the little verandah extending along the front of his house, which was made of basket-work plastered over with mud. He was wrapped up in a long web of white linen, or cotton cloth, called, I think, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... the Bermuda, which continues to spread, assumes control of the lawn, with but little of the June grass in sight. Each struggles for possession and does the best it can, and to some extent one supplements the other, with the result that at all times from spring to fall there is a close mat of living green which delights the eye and is pleasant to the feet that tread upon it. In soft ground, with plenty of room, a bit of quick or quack grass, or Bermuda, will extend in a year three to five feet or ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... up in my Golden Bed, and listened. Exploding Eggs was gone from his mat. The little house was silent and empty. Straining my ears I heard it unmistakably through the rustling noises of the forest and the dripping of rain from the eaves. It was the far, dim, almost inaudible beating of ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... of Helena's dress as she left her room reached us in the silence. I remained at the open door of the dining-room, and Maria approached and stood near me. We were both frightened. Euneece stepped forward, and stood on the mat at the foot of the stairs, waiting. Her back was toward me; I could only see that she was as still as a statue. The rustling of the dress came nearer. Oh, heavens! what was going to happen? My teeth chattered ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... porcupine His leggins were worked to his brawny knee. The bow he bent was a giant's bow; The swift red elk could he overtake, And the necklace that girdled his brawny neck Was the polished claws of the great Mat [14] He grappled and slew in the ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... treat, and as much appertaining to a divine as to a physician, and who knows not what an agreement there is betwixt these two professions? A good divine either is or ought to be a good physician, a spiritual physician at least, as our Saviour calls himself, and was indeed, Mat. iv. 23; Luke, v. 18; Luke, vii. 8. They differ but in object, the one of the body, the other of the soul, and use divers medicines to cure; one amends animam per corpus, the other corpus per animam ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... celebration of the festival:—"The tree was erected in the afternoon, while the greater part of the crew took a walk; and the lonely hut shone with wonderful brightness amid the snow. Christmas upon a Greenland iceberg! The tree was artistically put together of firwood and mat-weed, and Dr. Laube had saved a twist of wax-taper for the illumination. Chains of coloured paper and newly-baked cakes were not wanting, and the men had made a knapsack and a revolver case as a present for the captain. We opened ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... and lifted a coarse mat, with which he covered me when I got into the sleigh, and then set off at ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... little excursions on his own account. His manner was expectant. He knew there must be something unusual about the proceeding, because it was contrary to the habits of his whole life not to be asleep at this hour on the mat in front of the fire. He kept looking up into his master's face, as door after door was tried, with an expression of intelligent sympathy, but at the same time a certain air of disapproval. Yet everything his master ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... petty vexations, not one of which was of any moment, worked me up to desperation. I threw my book across the room, to the astonishment of my children, and determined to go out, although it was raining hard. My dog, a brown retriever, was lying on the mat just outside the door, and I nearly fell over him. "God damn you!" said I, and kicked him. He howled with pain, but, although he was the best of house-dogs and would have brought down any thief who came near him, he did not growl at me, and quietly followed ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... amazing vigour in many of the rivers, forming stems 12 feet long and 3/4 inch in diameter, and completely choking them up. It cost L300 a year to keep the Avon at Christchurch free from it. The sorrel (Rumex acetosella) covers hundreds of acres with a sheet of red. It forms a dense mat, exterminating other plants, and preventing cultivation. It can, however, be itself exterminated by sowing the ground with red clover, which will also vanquish the Polygonum aviculare. The most noxious weed in New Zealand appears, however, to be the Hypochaeris radicata, a coarse yellow-flowered ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... in at the front door, and stood for some time wiping his boots on the mat. The little house was ominously still, and a faint feeling, only partially due to the lapse of time since breakfast, manifested itself behind his waistcoat. He coughed—a matter- of-fact cough—and, with an attempt to hum a tune, hung ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... lady's mind. She, herself, was hardly called upon to join in the conversation on that evening, and as she sat and listened, she could not but think that Will Belton would have been less adroit, but that he would also have been more straightforward. And yet why should not Captain Aylmer talk to his mat? Will Belton would also have talked to his aunt if he had one, but then he would have talked his own talk, and not his aunt's talk. Clara could hardly make up her mind whether Captain Aylmer was or was not a sincere ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... verandah. When once I had got him there I did not exactly know what to do with my guest, for neither fire nor food could be procured quite so early. He crouched like a stray dog down on the dripping mat outside the door, and murmured some unintelligible words. In this dilemma I hastened to wake up poor F——, who found it difficult to understand why I wanted him to get up at daylight during a "sou'-wester." But I entreated him to go to the hall door, whilst ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... silver shoe-buckles—there was nothing left of the boy himself but the whites of his eyes. The tavern is placed where men moving in the new ways of a busy and adventurous world would not see it, for they would not be there. Its dog Ching was asleep on the mat of the portico to the saloon bar; a Chinese animal, in colour and mane resembling a lion whose dignity has become sullenness through diminution. He could doze there all day, and never scare away a ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... severe labour of a dead child. She appeared to recover after her confinement, so far that she was repeatedly flogged by both master and mistress afterwards; but her former strength never returned to her. Ere long her body and limbs swelled to a great size; and she lay on a mat in the kitchen, till the water burst out of her body and she died. All the slaves said that death was a good thing for poor Hetty; but I cried very much for her death. The manner of it filled me with horror. I could not bear to think about it; yet ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... contrived to accompany the wounded under pretence of assisting friends or near relations. They had already expelled a good number of these poor fellows, when, opening the door of a small room, they found a soldier soaked in blood lying on a rough mat, and another soldier apparently attending on him with the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... hair picked out of a mat below the window, and these scrapings of the window-sill, Tom carried off, and also the scrapings of the top bar of a stile between the mill and the Three Goblets. That evening, all were submitted to the microscope. Dr. May was waked from a doze by a very deferential 'I beg your pardon, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Uncle Charlie kicked me down the stairs And walloped me for crumpling up the mat; But this, though far from nice, is simply nothing to the crisis When father threw his wages at ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... for you. I am convinced I am going to be a confirmed invalid for the rest of my life, and it will be part of your job to sit at my bedside and read to me. By the way, does the paper say who the party of the second part was? Who was the citizen with whom I went to the mat?" ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... should first be covered with a mat of double-faced cotton flannel wide enough to fall six inches below the edge of the table, all around. This under mat greatly improves the appearance of the table-cloth, which can be laid much more ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... comes upon the silence, and dies off, As if the ebbing air had but one wave; So came these words and went; the while in tears She touch'd her fair large forehead to the ground, 80 Just where her falling hair might be outspread A soft and silken mat for Saturn's feet. One moon, with alteration slow, had shed Her silver seasons four upon the night, And still these two were postured motionless, Like natural sculpture in cathedral cavern; The frozen God still couchant on ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... interest to the Ingletons. With Douglas as an instructor, they all set to work on its manufacture. Taking ten inch lengths of the papyrus reeds, they cut them into long, thin, vertical slices, and laid these across each other in the form of a small mat between sheets of blotting paper. This was next squeezed through a wringing-machine to rid it of superfluous moisture, then placed under a heavy weight, in the manner of pressing flowers. When at last it was dry, the alternate layers ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... Pincushion: Jaconet muslin; Messrs. Walter Evans and Co.'s embroidery cotton No. 16. For toilet mat: ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... overgladed is my thoght. And natheles, the soth to telle, Ayeinward if it so befelle That I at thilke time sihe On me that sche miscaste hire yhe, 110 Or that sche liste noght to loke, And I therof good hiede toke, Anon into my ferste astat I torne, and am with al so mat, That evere it is aliche wicke. And thus myn hand ayein the pricke I hurte and have do many day, And go so forth as I go may, Fulofte bitinge on my lippe, And make unto miself a whippe. 120 With which in many a chele and hete Mi wofull herte is so tobete, That all my wittes ben unsofte ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... kind friend has brought me a new door-mat as a present," and he leaned down and stroked the soft hair with much pleasure. Then he wiped his feet on the new mat and went into the ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... whose favourite sleeping-place was the mat at his door, lying there as usual, but not asleep. Wide awake, as if on guard. And marvel of marvels! a dear little fair-haired boy fast, fast asleep, with his head on the dog, who was lying so as to make himself into as comfortable ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... father replied rising. "It is not late and the Maguires said they would take us out for a little spin in their Ford before dark. They might enjoy riding up to Aldercliffe and be quite willing we should take along the spring bed. Mat is a kind soul and I haven't a doubt he'd be glad to do us a favor. Run down and ask him, ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... do with the hour in front of her, went up to her bedroom, found the servant making the bed, came down into the drawing-room and sat in a dark corner under a large bead mat, that, nailed to the wall, gave little taps and rustlings as though it ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... itself with longing and pity ineffable. Arms and heart ached to enfold the precious little sinner so grievously worsted in the battle with temptation. "Mamma is very sorry that her darling has been so naughty!" she said, bowing her head upon the pillow beside the mat of curls dampened by the rain from ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... are all out to-night, and I have finished the mat I was crocheting, I thought I would send you a letter to reach you on your birthday instead of the telegram from the family. I am so thankful to hear that you keep well and happy and that Fanny has quite recovered from her cold. It was thoughtful of you to send the check, and I shall ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... the establishment holds no place in our memory; but, rampant on one eternal door-mat, in an eternal entry long and narrow, is a puffy pug-dog, with a personal animosity towards us, who triumphs over Time. The bark of that baleful Pug, a certain radiating way he had of snapping at our undefended legs, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... divine support under his pangs, and strength of fortitude to acquire the glory of martyrdom. At length the magician, exhausted by his cruel exercise, desisted, and making his slaves load his unfortunate victim with heavy fetters, chained him down with only a coarse mat to lie upon in a dark closet, in which was placed some stinking water and coarse bread, just sufficient to keep up his miserable existence. Mazin's courage was not to be overcome He washed his wounds, and comforted himself with the hope that if he died he ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... commenced with the first cough of Mrs. Pilcher on the door-mat. Mrs. P. was the monthly nurse, and monthly nurses always have a short cough. Whether this phenomenon arises from the obesity consequent upon arm-chairs and good living, or from an habitual intimation that they are present, and have not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... of mountain water ran at our feet. Good tea was brought us in new clean cups, and a sweetmeat of peanuts, set in sugar-like almond toffee. The teahouse was filled. In the midst of the tea drinkers a man was lying curled on a mat, a bent elbow his pillow, and fast asleep, with the opium pipe still beside him, and the lamp still lit. A pretty little girl from the adjoining cottage came shyly out to see me. I called her to me and gave her some sweetmeat. I wished to put it in her mouth but she would not let me, and ran off ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... accepted it with delight. Three times they wrestled on the grass, "side holds," even as the giants of the mat. And twice was Tom forced to bite grass at the hands of the distinguished lawyer. Dishevelled, panting, each still boasting of his own prowess, they stumbled back to the porch. Millie cast a pert reflection upon the qualities of a city brother. In an instant Robert had secured a horrid ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... uncomfortable that I'm not married yet—not papa or Izzy, but you—you! Never does one of the girls get engaged that you don't look at me like I was wearing the welcome off the door-mat." ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... of inferior temples and monasteries occupy the background, and are crowded with a rabble of priests, in yellow robes and with shaven pates; packs of mangy pariah-dogs attend them. These monasteries consist of many small rooms or cells, containing merely a mat and wooden pillow for each occupant. The refuse of the food, which the priests beg during the day, is cast to the dogs at night; and what they refuse is left to putrefy. Unimaginable are the stenches the sun of Siam engenders in ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... slightly awry. Originally covered with stucco, the walls had peeled year by year until the dull red of the bricks showed like blotches of paint under a thick coating of powder. Over the wide door two little oblong windows, holding four damaged panes, blinked rakishly from a mat of ivy, which spread from the rotting eaves to the shingled roof, where the slim wooden spire bent under the weight of creeper and innumerable nesting sparrows in spring. After pointing heavenward for half a century, the steeple appeared to have swerved ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... ignorant of the etymology of this word, which I believe means only a fall of water. Gili translates into Maypure a small cascade (raudalito) by uccamatisi mapara canacapatirri. Should we not spell this word matpara? mat being a radical of the Maypure tongue, and meaning bad (Hervas, Saggio N. 29). The radical par (para) is found among American tribes more than five hundred leagues distant from each other, the Caribs, Maypures, Brazilians, and Peruvians, in the words sea, rain, water, lake. We ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... forks of one, two, and three tines; steel knives with black handles; a hartshorn carving-knife. Thick-lipped china in stacks before the armchair. A round four-pound loaf of black bread waiting to be torn, and tonight, on the festive mat of cotton lace, a cake of pinkly gleaming icing, encircled with five ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... peered into the primitive little houses upon their stilt-like posts, and the ladies had spent some time in watching a quaint little native mother making efforts to at once ply the queer sticks which helped her in a strange sort of mat-weaving, and keep an eye upon a preternaturally solemn-faced infant, who, despite his gravity, seemed capable of quite as much mischief as the average enfant terrible of civilization. ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... important of all. It was the poorhouse, and required a good deal of stage-setting. All evidences of wealth had to be carefully eradicated. The cloth was taken from the table, and the one mat lifted off the floor. Newspapers were pinned over the windows, and the calendars were turned with their faces to the wall. The lamp with the cracked chimney was lighted instead of the "good lamp," and then Pearlie, with her mother's ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... of rest, and are busy sweeping the floor with long palms made into a kind of broom. These are the poor students, whose only meal is of dry bread, and who at night stretch themselves to sleep on the same mat on which they have ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... at all neat about his premises, this old cook was very particular about them; he had a warm love and affection for his cook-house. In fair weather, he spread the skirt of an old jacket before the door, by way of a mat; and screwed a small ring-bolt into the door for a knocker; and wrote his name, "Mr. Thompson," over it, with a ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... father's eyes tight shut, and heard him give just one little snore—it was rather a make-believe snore—he did let nurse draw him on to her knee; and very soon the little gipsy creature was fast asleep, with all his brown curls lying like a soft mat over nurse's arm. Milly, too, shut her eyes and sat very still; she did not mean to go to sleep, but presently she began to think a great many sleepy thoughts: Why did the hedges run so fast? and why did the telegraph wires go up and down as if they were always making curtsies? and was that really ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sahib's bearer curled himself up on the mat beneath the bed and gone to sleep, while the major sahib, after the ball, had sat in his shirt-sleeves upon that bed until three in the morning; and over and over again mentally slid up and down the room with supple, slender Leonie in his arms, where, in the earlier hours of the night, ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... Andres solemnly. "They've let out that the key's hidden under the mat—the devils!" Here Baker Jorgen burst into a shout of laughter; his laughter filled the whole ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... with a radiant face. On hearing her message, Emma scowled and said: "I think you oughtn't to have any holiday at all for making so much trouble last Saturday. I could have crocheted dozens of rows on my mat while I was looking for you. I tell you what, missy, if you're naughty and disobedient, you'll be sent ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... the arts and manufactures of Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes and other of the Dutch colonial possessions in the Malay seas. Here are models of the junks, proas and fishing-craft, each structure pegged together and destitute of nails. The large mat sails depend from yards of bamboo; the rudders are large oars, one over each counter; the decks are roofed with bamboo, ratan and the inevitable nipa-palm leaves. The smaller craft, made of hollow tree-trunks, have the double outrigger, and the finer ones have shelters ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... imprisonment upon pledging himself to abandon all thoughts of the contemplated union. This promise, however, he did not keep. A cypher correspondence was discovered under the tiles of the roof of the house, and other papers were found concealed under the mat outside his bed chamber. For this he was arraigned on a charge of high treason, and executed ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... pair of needles; set up from twenty to forty stitches, more or less, and knit till you are tired. When finished—(the knitting)—draw out the needles and bite off the thread. You will thus have made an elegant lamp-mat, of the same color as the worsted, and the very thing for a Christmas present ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... the table Anne's very pale face. She laughed a little hysterically, out of the deep shadows between the gloomy mat walls. ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... the rotation of crops in plow agriculture. Similarly I expect great value can be obtained in our pastured and fertilized nut orchards if we so treat the soil with lime, phosphorous, and whatever else is needed, to give a good mat of white clover and other legumes which are undoubtedly a good nitrogen supply for trees ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... pretty garland of it, to hang over my own dear mamma's picture. Rosette says she will show me how to tie the flowers together; she has made me a pretty wreath for my doll's straw hat, and she means to make her a mat ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... on the mantelpiece, as if glad to make itself heard at last. Outside, a plaintive snuffle made itself heard. John, the bull-dog, Mike's inseparable companion, who had followed him to the study, was getting tired of waiting on the mat. Mike got up and opened ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... was almost to the cross-trees, clambering the shrouds with a smartness no sailor has ever come to, her yellow body, cut by the moving shadows of the ratlines, a queer sight against the mat of the night. McCord closed his mouth and opened it again for two words: "By gracious!" The following instant he had the lantern and was after her. I watched him go up above my head—a ponderous, swaying climber into the sky—come to the cross-trees, and squat there with his knees clamped around ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... rested my two hundred pounds, and rising a few pounds, on this surface, with no protection for it or myself for several nights, and there were no fractures. There is spread on this surface a Manila mat, which is a shade tougher and less tractable than our old style oilcloth. Upon this is spread a single sheet, that is tucked in around the edges of the mat, and there are no bed clothes, absolutely none. There ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... the folded page and left the room with quiet dignity, but caught his foot in the mat. Both ladies ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... as was the practice in the days of Ezekiel the prophet, of dung kneaded into cakes, which they dry in the sun, exposing them to its rays on the walls of their huts. In summer, their lodging is more airy; but all their furniture consists of a single mat and a pitcher for carrying water. The immediate neighborhood of the village is sown at the proper season with grain and watermelons; all the rest is a desert, and abandoned to the Bedouin Arabs, who feed their flocks on it. There ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... lappets got the character of amulets.[1473] In some Papuan tribes those who had learned all the religious secrets were allowed to wear the girdle as a sign of honor and dignity.[1474] Sometimes a skin or mat is worn hanging from the waist behind. It really is worn to be sat upon, upon occasion. Nothing else is worn.[1475] In this case, and in some of those mentioned above from Central Africa, a consciousness is ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... him, "that poem of Carolyn's just behind your cup: 'Summer Day in Duneland'." It was a bit of verse in a narrow black frame, and the mat was embellished with pen-and-ink drawings of the dunes, to the effect of an etching. An etcher, in fact, a man famous in his field, had made them, Mrs. ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... so, and the mat was dropped behind us. The sounds of crude music were now much plainer, and as Smith slipped a little shutter aside I gave ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... and all through his racing career he was not put to any severe test of speed, or most likely his name would have represented the double achievement of being a famous racer, and the sire of famous racers too. He was bought for 1,600l., the purchase being effected on the recommendation of Mat Dawson, the trainer, and the horse was then a two-year-old. That he could go at a terrific pace is proved by an observation made one day by Fred Archer to the trainer. St. Simon was at exercise when Archer's spur touched him, unintentionally by the jockey. He bounded into a gallop—a state ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard |
